Offline, real-presence education

From a defense of — what can one call it? — offline, real-presence education:

The goal of bringing students to campus for several years is to immerse them in an environment in which learning is the highest value, something online environments, no matter how interactive, cannot simulate. Real learning is hard; it requires students to trust each other and their teachers. In other words, it depends on relationships.

Johann Neem, Online Higher Education’s Individualist Fallacy (Inside Higher Ed)

I’m reminded of what Jacques Barzun wrote in Teacher in America (1945): “Teaching is not a process; it is a developing emotional situation.”

[Yes, “real-presence education” is my irreverent pun on a theological doctrine. No, I don’t think the teacher is God.]